Matt Gurney: Liberals hoping a four-month difference will save them

Bob Rae and the Liberal leadership: Liberals hoping a four-month difference will save them

The CBC is reporting that, as had long been suspected and previously reported on by Postmedia, the federal Liberals have agreed to release Bob Rae from his prior promise not to seek the party’s permanent leadership. So released, Mr. Rae is expected to step down from his interim leader’s post in the next few weeks, after the House breaks for the summer, and announce that he will seek the top job on a permanent basis shortly thereafter.

No kidding. This has been considered effectively a given for months. Mr. Rae has done an acceptable job as the interim leader and clearly enjoyed the role, and the backroom negotiating to clear his way to take over for real has been a known secret all along. So no surprises here.

But what is interesting is that there is a hint that the Liberals are starting to recognize a vulnerability inherent to their leadership plans. It will sideline the party for months and months while the NDP establishes itself under a new, energized leader. That’s very risky … and to their credit, they seem to know it.

The Liberal leadership race is expected to officially get under way this fall. The leadership convention could be held at any time from March 1 all the way to the end of June, a four-month window. The CBC report cites sources stating that the convention and selection of the leader will be nearer the beginning of that window than the end.

Good. From the Liberal perspective, it should be on March 1. As early in the morning as possible. Any delay just makes them more irrelevant.

It’s too early to read too much into the polls floating around these days, but several surveys of voter intention suggest that the federal Conservatives and NDP are neck and neck. This is more than just a honeymoon bounce for newly minted Dipper-in-Chief Thomas Mulcair. While polls so far from the next election — three years or so away — don’t count for much, it is plain enough that the NDP is stronger, at least on paper, than it ever has been before.

Some of that probably reflects recent Tory fumbles — Lawful Access, the F-35, Bev Oda’s freshly squeezed vitamin C, and the ongoing reports of voting irregularities and dirty tricks dogging the Tories. And the NDP will eventually have whoopsies of their own, at which point a rookie leader and a largely untested caucus will be thrown in over their heads, to sink or swim on their own.

All that being said, however, it’s still not unfair to wonder if this shift toward the NDP might be, at least in part, for real. We could be plausibly looking at a major realignment in federal voter support. It’s all theory for now … but it’s damned interesting theory.

And the Liberals are going to miss out on a lot of it. If Rae steps down, as expected, in a few weeks, some other caretaker will be in command. When parliament resumes sitting in the fall, Rae and other Liberal big shots will be busy sniping each other, for months and months. And these could be big months indeed. Just think of the things that could be coming up this fall: European debt catastrophes and possible impacts on Canada, the U.S. federal election (with equal or greater ramifications for Canada’s future), investigations into alleged Tory misdeeds, an updated military spending plan, a probable Tory cabinet shuffle between now and then … this is big stuff.

And the Liberals will miss it all. They’ll be campaigning. Sure, they’ll have bums in seats in the House of Commons, and someone will show up at the scrums, but without a leader, the Liberals will lack not only a profile, but a set of policies they can articulate and offer as an alternative not just to the Tories, but the NDP. The longer this goes on, and the more comfortable the NDP become in the role of the opposition (and the more comfortable Canadians get with them having that role), the harder it will be for the Liberals to break back into the political big leagues, no matter who their leader ultimately is.

That’s why it’s a good idea for them to move their leadership vote as far forward as possible. Every day the NDP gets to spend as the de facto sole opposition party, the harder it will be for the Liberals to do anything about changing that state of affairs.